Enough to Wake the Dead  REPOST
by Dibsthe1
Summary: REVISED and REPOSTED! Ms. Membrane dies, leaving two young children, Dib and Gaz. Thank you all for the feedback... it is MUCH appreciated!
1. Part One

Black isn't white, up isn't down, and I don't own Invader Zim or the main characters Dib, Gaz or Professor Membrane. The honor of creating them belongs to Jhonen Vasquez.

Poop colas and delicious bologna sandwiches to everyone who took the time to review! Your feedback is duly noted and greatly appreciated.

I did say I would welcome constructive criticism... well, the response to "Enough to Wake the Dead" has made me very happy indeed! :-D

I didn't change Part One at all, but Part Two is a little different and the biggest change is in Part Three.

Geez... now why on earth... OR on Irk... didn't I think of ending it like this in the first place? Thank you all so, so much! ( J. Random Lurker, you totally rock!)

At their mother's wake, Gaz begins to truly stretch her wings. Dib fans, and God knows I'm one myself, be warned that parts of this will not be pretty. The Funeral Director is mine, and one-dimensional, but you're absolutely right, Senri, poor Dib SO needs a break!

Enough to Wake the Dead

The Funeral Director was well aware that the late Ms. Membrane had left two children, but when he actually met them and asked them their ages, his heart sank. Out of everything this job threw at you, this had to be the hardest. A bereaved child, trying somehow to be brave but looking all the more lost for doing so, was the only sight even worse than those terrible little white coffins with the teddy bears.

A medium height man of medium build, with hair that was just beginning to recede and turn grey at the temples, he vowed, as always, to do as much as he could for this family for as long as he had the opportunity. He guided the family to the parlor where the late Ms. Membrane was to be waked.

For this occasion, Dib had been persuaded to wear a white shirt with a black bow tie, but nothing could induce him to leave off the trench coat his mother had bought for him. Upon his first sight of his mother lying absolutely motionless in her casket, Dib gasped but caught himself just in time before calling out "Mom!"

When the Funeral Director asked the Professor had he decided what readings he wanted for the service and what inscription for the tombstone, Dib's father told him, just a little too cheerfully, "Son, keep an eye on Gaz for me. I have something I must work on!" before stepping back into the Funeral Director's office to make his selections and sign the necessary papers.

Gaz walked right up to the casket, carrying her GameSlave as always. As rapidly as Gaz's playing was improving, Dib was even more rapidly learning to keep tensely on the alert when she was playing her video games nearby. When the difficulty level of the game she was playing outpaced her ability to keep up, as it still did all too often, Gaz's target of choice for lashing out at in her frustration was her brother. Then her mother used to inflict the ultimate injustice, taking away her beloved GameSlave for nothing more than attacking Dib. These incidents infuriated Gaz so much that she would wish her mother dead, and when her mother finally did go to the hospital, Gaz had overheard everyone whispering that she might...

Even seeing her mother like this, Gaz still didn't believe she was dead."Wake up, Mommy. This is your wake, so when do you wake up?" Getting no response at all, Gaz tried something that had always gotten a reaction from her mother quickly enough before; she kicked Dib, this time square in the kneecap.

"OWW GAZ! What was THAT for?" Dib howled, limping away. But her mother did not react in any way. She didn't scold Gaz, ask Dib stupid questions like was he okay, or even move... so it had to be true.

Gaz's awe swelled so huge inside her that it was almost frightening. Her eyes widened, her breath came in rapid gusts and her hands began to shake. _I'm actually strong enough to make people dead, even... even Mommy? Wow... Now I have Daddy all to myself!_ It was a scary thrill, deeper even than her first time crossing the street alone. Just to make sure, she aimed another kick at Dib, but this time he was watching and hopped clear.

"Dib!" came the voice of his father, as the Funeral Director showed him back to the parlor. "Skipping and playing at a time like this?" The Funeral Director spoke up and told him he was sure the boy meant no disrespect, as a parent's death could often take a long time to sink in.

Gaz took the end of the sofa closest to her mother's head and turned on her GameSlave. Dib slowly sat at the opposite end, staring at the casket. As he rubbed his knee, his eyes filled with tears.

Dib could barely remember anything about his life before Gaz, but there was no end to the photo albums full of pictures of baby Dib and a very fat Mommy. She'd been the kind of mother who enjoyed showing him how much fun you could find in life if you just looked for it. They had played in the park, gazed at stars, filled bird feeders, collected leaves, carved pumpkins at the supermarket, gone to every children's event at the library... you name it, they had done it. Their favorite activity was reading, and before long his mother was getting Dib's books about ghosts and aliens from the bookstore instead of the library.

Later his mother was taking both Dib and Gaz to these fun places, but after a day of trying to find something that DID interest Gaz and keep her from savaging Dib, she would return home too exhausted to do much more than prepare supper and read them one story each. Quite by accident she discovered that the game on her cell phone kept Gaz happy, and the days immediately after she bought Gaz her own GameSlave were the very happiest days Dib could actually remember... as long as his mother was nearby for those occasions when Gaz could no longer keep her game going.

Even when she got sick, Dib's mother had continued to show him love, although by then her mind was often elsewhere with pain and worry. She still tried to catch Gaz each time she hit or kicked him, even preventing it if at all possible. He wasn't allowed to hit or kick her back, she kept saying, so it wasn't fair for Gaz to hit or kick him. So simple and so reasonable... and yet so incomprehensible to everyone else!

When his mother came home from the hospital she was still sick, too sick to go anywhere. So she spent as much time as possible going over the old photo albums with Dib, while Gaz sat nearby playing on her GameSlave, until her headache came back and she had to sleep.

And now she was gone, his mother, who had always found more time for him than anybody else ever did. She answered all his childish questions, always listened when he was learning to read, and when everyone else told him such stuff was nonsense or were obviously humoring him, it had been his mother who listened when he talked about vampires and aliens and -

GHOSTS! Maybe she'd come back as a ghost and talk to him! If anyone could see ghosts, it would be him! There was a way to do this, wasn't there? There had to be!

Dib walked up to his mother's casket and leaned over to softly ask her, "Mom? Mom, are you really dead? Can you still hear me somehow... Mom?"

Without looking up from her game, Gaz growled, "You know she's dead; she's finally minding her own business for once. Now shut up about your stupid ghost foolishness NOW... because if I lose this game I'll put YOU in a coffin too."

Something about the creepy way she said it told Dib she was not exaggerating.

End of Part One


	2. Part Two

Black isn't white, up isn't down, and I don't own Invader Zim or the main characters Dib, Gaz or Professor Membrane. The honor of creating them belongs to Jhonen Vasquez.

Part Two

Soon after Dib returned to his seat on the sofa, the first neighbours and relatives began trickling in to pay their respects, joined by the hover screens of representatives of the worldwide scientific community.

Dib soon realized his father was spending more time by far with the latter, leaving to him the task of receiving the relatives. Dib sighed, wishing that his father would sit down with him, even for just a little while. It would almost be like his mother was still in hospital; this way, he could pretend that she would be rejoining the family at any minute. Plus it wouldn't feel like his father was leaving him too.

From Dib's point of view, the visitors were coming in two varieties. Whenever a visitor told him not to cry, he immediately knew what they'd be saying next... some variation on how he now had to take care of his little sister. He knew his line, which was to assure them that he would... even though being only one year older, and a first grader at that, Dib wasn't sure how exactly he was supposed to accomplish this. He felt as though they were dressing him up in his father's clothes and expecting him to say with a straight face that the garments fit him perfectly.

Why, when Dib so much as reminded Gaz it was mealtime when his father told him to, Gaz totally ignored him... when he was lucky. More often she snapped at him to quit bossing her around; if Dib persisted, she exploded in a fury which left him cut and bruised.

The other visitors really talked with him, asked him how Grade One was going, and told him how proud his mother had been of him. Some actually remembered to ask, their eyes twinkling, if he'd seen any ghosts lately. At this point Dib didn't even care if they were just humoring him. At least these cool relatives weren't treating him like he'd aged ten years overnight, or expecting him to lead someone who was about to follow nobody.

Quite a few visitors were trying to cuddle Gaz, cooing that the poor little thing was so grief-stricken that she had completely withdrawn into herself, what a shame. Fighting off panic, Dib tried to prevent them from bothering her too much, knowing all too well what could result if she lost her game. When he tried honesty as a tactic, that Gaz simply played video games like that all the time and could get pretty mad when she lost, Dib just got shot dirty looks for his trouble, so he settled for merely hoping nothing disastrous would happen until he could think of a more palatable reason for them not to disturb Gaz's gameplaying.

Meanwhile, Gaz was thinking, as she pressed the buttons steadily, _If these stupid idiots make me lose my game it'll be completely Dib's fault for not making them shut up._

Though she could by now play far better than most teenagers, Gaz had still to actually finish a game. Now up to her highest level yet, but down to her final avatar, she concentrated fiercely; anyone causing her to lose her game now would be in serious trouble indeed. If she held the power of life and death over real life people, she should certainly be able to finish a video game! Closer to the next level, closer, c l o s e r ... gone! GAME OVER!

Grinding her teeth in fury, Gaz barely managed to restrain herself from hurling the GameSlave with all the force she could muster into the wall. After breaking her first ever GameSlave that same way, she'd screamed nonstop for several hours until she got its replacement. Burning once again with rage at losing her game, Gaz now looked around for a quick means of regaining her feeling of control.

With their mother now unlikely to intervene, Dib offered a more perfectly convenient target than ever for her spite. However, Gaz couldn't very well give him the Dooming he so richly deserved with all these people around... until all these people actually gave Gaz an idea.

She reached behind the droning, babbling visitors on the sofa to carefully slide her hand behind Dib's head. Timing her own scream to cover his, she yanked his hair scythe viciously. "OW quit it Gaz!" Dib blurted; a split second later, Gaz screamed again.

All conversation in the room hushed as everyone in the room glared, horrified and openmouthed, at Dib.

Dib gaped helplessly at the assemblage, at everyone physically present as well as at the images on the hover screens. He knew better than to even try defending himself in a case like this. If he told the truth about what had happened here, he'd surely be called a liar and worse. Dib frantically scanned the room for someone looking at him with something other than condemnation. He found nothing else but.

"Did you see what he did to her? To his little sister?" "With his mother still right there? It's a wonder she isn't turning over..." "Yes, I saw it too. He raised his fist and slugged her!" "Shame on him... Shame!"

Dib fought back an urge to beat his head against the wall in his frustration. WHAT was it WITH people? In a room literally wall to wall with witnesses, NOT ONE of them had seen what had actually happened. So strongly did everyone believe little girls to be always sweet and harmless that even when they were in the same room with one who was anything but, they continued to believe it!

Unwilling to look anybody in the eye, Dib dropped his gaze to the floor. Suddenly his father was at his side, tugging on his son's shoulder with one hand and jerking his other thumb in the direction of the coat room. Once there, he blocked the door with Dib inside. "Please, Dad," Dib faltered, trying to get his side of the story out before the Lecture, "please, listen, Gaz pulled my hair and - "

But listening to his own son had never been one of the Professor's strong points. "What is WRONG with you, acting like that with your mother - with your mother so sick?" His father's denial frightened Dib even more. "What way is that to treat your little sister? Answer me! You're older than she is so it's your duty to PROTECT her, not PICK on her! Do you understand?"

The mounting injustice hurt far worse than the pain in his scalp, but through long experience Dib had figured out the fastest way to end these harangues. "Yes, Dad, she's only my little sister. Yes, Dad, I'm sorry I was so bad. Yes, Dad, she's just a little girl. Yes Dad, I'm ashamed of myself." _Yes Dad I'm evil and worthless, yes Dad this, yes Dad that._

"That's better." The forced cheerfulness was back again. Now get back out there and start acting more like a big brother."

Dib forced himself to re-enter the parlor through a gauntlet of indignant stares. Gaz, already deep into another game, took a moment to say something to him. "Ha, ha, Di- ib," she taunted.

Clenching his fists and gritting his teeth, Dib desperately tried not to cry, SCREAM, **EXPLODE... **He huddled on the sofa, burning with silent rage until he was sure everyone could hear the blood pounding in his ears.

The Funeral Director now entered the room, vaguely aware that he had missed a scene of some sort. When he asked how the children were doing, the Professor briskly assured him that "The situation is under control!" but offered little else.

"Would your children like to come see me in my office for a minute? One at a time would work better, but if they'd prefer to come in together, that's fine too."When Gaz saw Dib's eagerness to go somewhere, anywhere, she lost whatever microscopic interest she may have had in going. Well if Gaz wasn't going, Dib wasn't going either because he had to watch her, the Professor declared. To that, the Funeral Director quietly suggested that this was a perfect time for the little girl to have her Daddy sit next to her for a little while. Nobody could very well object to that, and off Dib went with the Funeral Director to his office.

End of Part Two


	3. Part Three

Black isn't white, up isn't down, and I don't own Invader Zim or the main characters Dib, Gaz or Professor Membrane. The honor of creating them belongs to Jhonen Vasquez.

Part Three

Though he had met this man only that day, Dib already felt as if he had known him for a long time. After offering Dib a chair, the Funeral Director gave him some Belgian chocolate covered shortbread cookies from a tin he kept in his desk for just such occasions. Sampling one, Dib found in its center a surprising dollop of sweet, tangy jam. The Funeral Director left the tin within Dib's easy reach and with his hand indicated that Dib was welcome to as many cookies as he wanted. Dib licked his fingers and reached for more. These were by far the best cookies he'd ever tasted... well, except for the ones his mother had made, of course.

The Funeral Director prepared to made the speech he least enjoyed giving, but it was the one he personally made sure that any young child of any client of his would get to hear at least once. He knew that the remaining parent was often so distracted by shock and grief that he or she could easily omit saying these few words, words that could bring a child immeasurable comfort at this time.

Taking a deep breath, he established eye contact and began."First of all, Dib, I am very sorry that you lost your mother. We don't know why this happens to some children. But we do know this." The Funeral Director shook his head with a gentle smile as he continued. "Parents never, ever die because their child did something bad! No little boy can possibly be good all the time, but please, Dib, don't ever think that this was your fault! I know, for a fact I know, that it wasn't."

Dib was listening, so the Funeral Director continued. "Children also wonder sometimes if their mother went away because she didn't love them any more. Well, every day I see somebody's mother who died, and I know that no matter where she is now, your mother still loves you just as much as ever! Now... they're not trying to tell you not to cry, are they? Because it's okay to, you know."

Dib shook his head and started to reply no thanks, because he was a boy he wasn't allowed to cry, but before he could get all the words out he had started crying like he was never going to stop. The Funeral Director came over and held Dib to his shoulder, let him cry, and scream and cry again, said he would never tell anybody Dib cried, told him to go ahead and just pour it all out, because if he didn't cry today, years later he'd still be crying on the inside where it hurts more...

When Dib's torrent finally ebbed, the Funeral Director offered him a tissue and reminded him to blow his nose. To Dib's surprise, he actually felt a little better; at least he no longer feared he would cry any second.

The Funeral Director returned to his own chair. "Now, child, is there anything you would like to talk about? Anything at all?"

Oh, Dib wanted to talk about plenty, all right. So much so, in fact, that he didn't know where to start. He wanted to say he didn't know what to do when Gaz beat him up, which she was doing with impunity every single day now, that he was supposed to take care of her somehow but she would never listen to him. And he wanted to ask how one went about talking to dead people.

Dib thought and thought about where to begin. Finally he decided that after the way the entire room, including the cool relatives and even his own father, had fallen over themselves to think the worst of him the minute Gaz sneak attacked him and tricked everyone, he still wasn't entirely sure he could trust this person either, for all his kindness.

Dib asked the question he figured was the safest, if there was a way he could talk to his mother again somehow. Stifling a snort of surprise, the Funeral Director offered Dib a soft, indulgent smile and told him he'd get his chance someday, but not to rush it, it would happen in plenty of time.

Returning Dib to the parlor, the Funeral Director handed the Professor a business card and told him it was a phone number for a therapist for this very situation, a grief counsellor who specialized in children. The distracted way the Professor tucked the card into his pocket gave Dib cause to doubt his father would remember ever hearing about it.

The Funeral Director told Gaz it was her turn now, but Gaz wasn't the slightest bit interested in anything but her GameSlave. The Funeral Director gave Gaz the same number of cookies Dib had eaten before whispering the same consoling speech to her, inviting her to come and cry in his office if she wasn't comfortable doing so out here, asked if she wanted to talk about anything, said not even death could end a parent's love, and told her that no child was ever to blame with his or her parent died.

At that, Gaz looked up and gave the Funeral Director a wide, glowing grin, one he'd never forget. He walked on air all the way back to his office. _This... now THIS is what makes the job for me... I really got through to her!_

Dib had been hoping that once he returned from the Funeral Director's office, he could have his chance to sit beside his father as Gaz had just had, but no sooner had he returned to the parlor than the Professor left him in charge of Gaz once again, to strike up a conversation with a man who had just come in and already seemed to be late for an appointment somewhere else.

Sometime later, after Gaz had ascended a few more levels and as Dib was looking around the room carefully for any signs of his mother's ghost, the Professor led a neighbour woman carrying a plate of sandwiches over to the sofa where his children were sitting. "Son, take your sister and follow this nice lady downstairs for dinner!"

Dib licked his lips. He was hungry and the cookies had merely whetted his appetite. "Hey, c'mon, Gaz, let's get away from all these grownups and go downstairs for a while! There's sandwiches. I saw them. They looked good!"

Without even looking up from her GameSlave, Gaz snarled, "Leave me alone."

Dib tried again; he could easily enough imagine the scene that would ensue if he dared go downstairs by himself to eat. "Aren't you hungry, Gaz? I sure am! I bet I can eat more sandwiches than you," Dib tried an appeal to Gaz's competitive drive.

Gaz glanced at the corpse of their mother before staring deep into Dib's eyes. Her eyes narrowed, focussing venom until it seared his very soul. "Do NOT bother me, Dib. I WILL destroy you." While a threat from Gaz was always to be taken seriously, this one made him catch his breath. Dib didn't know why such icy fear clutched his gut, only that he was in no hurry to urge her downstairs again.

When their father came over again to ask Dib, "Why aren't you taking your sister downstairs for sandwiches?" Gaz was careful to put her game on pause before looking up, her eyes soft and wide. "Food? There's food? Nobody told me there was food. Where is it?"

His father glared down at him; Dib whirled in panic and some relative remarked, "Do you see how guilty he looks?"

"I don't envy the Professor. That boy's going to be nothing but trouble."

Her work completed, Gaz hopped off the chair and ran off downstairs. He heard, "Son, don't let her trip and fall!" even though Gaz was a room ahead by now, and if she did stub her toe he wouldn't be able to do much to prevent a fall.

When they came upstairs again to sit in the parlor, Dib stood for an exceptionally fat aunt who wanted the last seat. When a teenage cousin, a fan of horror movies who had heard something to the effect that Dib liked ghost stories, offered to take him out for a break and an ice cream treat, the Professor said no, Dib had to stay and watch Gaz and protect her.

"'Protect' her? 'Protect' her from what??" the cousin wrinkled his nose and waved his arms around the room. "Any one of us here can watch her for one second! AND! We're all family here ANYWAY! Sheesh Dib!" With a pitying shake of his head, the cousin stepped out to a nearby corner store for an ice cream bar for each of them. Dib gratefully ate his, but Gaz set hers on the arm of the sofa, went back to playing, and showed Dib her teeth if he even looked like he was thinking of asking could he have hers before it melted if she didn't want it.

Presently Dib sat down next to the sofa, closer to Gaz than was comfortable, but he was very tired, of standing as well as of watching that delicious ice cream go to waste. Gaz had finally made it to the final level, but once again she was down to her last avatar. Determined though she was to finally finish the game, for the second time that day the screen showed those horrible words "Game Over."

Gaz's teeth showed glowing embers along their gaps as sucked her breath through them, trying... not... to fling... her game... at the wall. No... no. Somehow she doubted she'd receive another GameSlave within the minute. So instead she decided to give Dib another kick, perhaps catch his glasses, to see if her aim was better in real life than it was in the game.

But Dib, intuitively aware of the impending danger, chose that moment to look up, and the edge of her shoe caught his lip, splitting it. Blood. Oh well, even better. Gaz started another game, consoled for the moment as Dib reached for a tissue from the boxes that dotted the room.

Finally the room cleared out as the funeral home was preparing to close its doors for the day. "Yes but Gaz is the one I really feel sorry for"... "lovely flowers"... "what with that bully big brother of hers"... "so many people showed up"... "only in kindergarten, so sad..." "must get together more often, you know what they say about families, only seeing each other at weddings and funerals!"

Finally the Professor came over to collect his children. Dib just looked up at him, too tired after this long day to chatter the way he usually did. _What happened to Dad? It's like he just remembered we're even here_, Dib thought.

At least the Professor asked Dib how he had cut himself. After thinking he had caught it all, Dib now noticed the stray drops on his shirt; he would need a fresh one tomorrow from somewhere.

"Well? I'm waiting!"

By now Dib had a good idea what would happen if he tried telling the truth. "Uh, I bumped my chin on the coffee table."

The Professor shook his head. "I'm not a complete idiot son! Let's examine the evidence, shall we? Coffee table... no blood. Here... blood! It won't kill you to tell the truth for once, will it, just this one time, hm? I promise, son, I''ll believe you!"

"Actually, Dad," Dib lowered his voice cautiously, "Here is the truth. Gaz kick - But I'm sure it was an accident!" he hastily added upon seeing the exasperation cloud his father's goggles over once again.

"Boy I'm fed up with your lying! How dare you accuse your little sister to cover up your own clumsiness! I should... Oh never mind. Let's get out of here."

Writing the daily report in his log book, the Funeral Director found he was still troubled by one family in particular. His job brought him in constant contact with people under some of the worst stress of their lives, and he knew from long experience that this situation had violent abuse written all over it. True, he hadn't actually seen any, not the father hitting the kids, not the young boy hitting the younger girl, so what could it be? Though the signs were all there, his attempts to get them to open up and talk had led nowhere.

The Funeral Director hoped he had done the right thing by suggesting to the Professor that both the boy and the girl would need to be next to their one remaining parent, so perhaps at the actual funeral the next day, he would like to sit with one child on either side of him. He hoped that this arrangement would alleviate, at least for the duration of the service, whatever the actual problem was.

As the remainder of the Membrane family approached their car, Dib reached for the handle on the front passenger door, expecting to sit in the front seat with his father as he had been promised that morning. When they had set out for the funeral home, Gaz had insisted on getting in the front seat, and they had all agreed that on the return trip, the front seat would go to Dib.

However, Gaz decided that she wanted the front seat now too... and when Dib tried to remind his father about the deal they'd made just that morning, the Professor told him, all glib and jolly, "Just suck it up son! Giving in is the price you pay for being the big brother!"

Dib fought back a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Would he always from now on be taking a back seat... literally... to Gaz?

He darted over to pop up in front of his father as he was opening the door. "Dad! Let's do this."

"Yes?"

"Uh, I'm thinking it would be better to put Gaz in the back seat. It's late and she's tired and if she falls asleep, there'd be more room back there for her to stretch out."

"I'm tired too, son, so let's go home."

Dib wondered if his father was hard of hearing or just too tired to listen. The third possibility, that he was deliberately pushing his son away, hurt too much to even consider. He sighed. With a smug smirk, Gaz was now settled in the front seat, next to their father, the one which had been promised to him this time.

Working on their father would get him nowhere, Gaz would do only what she wanted to do, and - Hey...

As his father searched for the key, Dib jumped into the back seat and immediately stretched out fully, then curled up as if he were nestling into the most luxurious canopy bed in the world. He sighed loudly and began soft, fake snoring.

Gaz looked around and began to wiggle uneasily, trying to see what her brother was doing in the back seat that was so good. The Professor chuckled. "What's that? You sure know how to wind me around your little finger, don't you?" To Dib he said, "Sorry to disturb you son, but... we are switching... seats!"

As Gaz scrambled into the back seat, Dib took his place in the front and fastened the seat belt, beside his father at last. The Professor finally found his car keys. Dib watched his father start the car, back out of the parking slot, and wait for a break in traffic before swinging the car out onto the road. He took a deep breath and sat back contentedly. As the night sky whooshed past overhead, Dib pretended his mother was still alive, still in the hospital, and they were all on their way to visit her for one last time.

The End


End file.
